Marbella Remember King Fahd.

Marbella Remember King Fahd.

Fahd bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud. 1923 – August 1, 2005. He was the king and prime minister of Saudi Arabia and leader of the House of Saud.

Everyone has a favourite Fahd story. Mine was that day he cast a glance eye over Marbella’s Hotel Don Pepe. He sent a secretary to enquire how much would the owners want for the hotel. The answerable was politely told the hotel was not for sale. The secretary replied: “Everyone has a price when in comes to the king”. But not that time. It was one of the very few occasions that Fahd was rejected. But his love affair with Marbella was not dimmed. He told a local journalist that he liked the town “because it is part of a land blessed by Allah”, referring to the time when the area had been occupied by the Arabs from the 8th to the 13th century.

King Fahd’s Palace.

From the hotel Incosol just outside Marbella, Fahd directed the construction of his Marbella property, Mar Mar Palace, modelled on the White House. And his retinue of 3.000 courtiers spent like money was about to go out of fashion. Krug and caviar become the order of the day on the Golden Mile. A local newspaper calculated that a Fahd summer visit saw the profits at Puerto Banus rise by 35.000 Euros a day. Tales of excess and extravagance, of sex and shopping sprees, filled the pages of the world’s tabloid press.

Fahd becomes known as the king of Bling, the Sultan of Splendour. His personal wealth was estimated at Euro 25 billion. “He earned more in a minute that eny monarch in history did in a year”, observed a suitably impressed writer for the Financial Times.

Ibn Saud’s favourite son.

He arrived at Malaga International Airport in his own customised Boing-747. Its fittings included a solid gold toilet, gold cutlery and plates, and a gold throne. But Fahd often preferred to squat on the floor; perhaps it was a reminder that his father, Ibn Saud, had been an uneducated desert Bedouin. Recognised as the country’s first monarch of a new kingdom, Ibn Saud fathered a dynasty of 46 sons by numerous wives.

Fahd, was Ibn Saud favourite son, spent his youth in Paris and at the casino in Monte Carlo. I once watched him spend five million francs on the throw of a dice. Next night, he turned up with his latest toy; a customised pen that could sign a cheque in gold ink. He also had the casino fountain gush only Cristal champagne while he was at the table.

Marbella Official Mourning.

All this – and more – made him a fawned upon favourite at the Hotel Incosol. Staff marvelled at the way Fahd could smoke two cigarettes at one time; he would have an ashtray on either side of his chair. No one at the hotel knows how many wives he brought. More certain, he was one of the first kings to parade his mistresses in public. When he died August 2005, the sense of loss in Marbella was marked by the town major, Marisol Yague, declaring three days of official mourning and the town hall rushed through a decree that the late king was an adopted son of the municipality.

In the hotel Incosol, and the other grand hotels of the coast, no longer would flunkeys murmur the most potent words in the Spanish language; “el rey pagar’a” (the king will pay). No longer would Antonia Molina, the owner of Marbella’s finest jewellers, Gomez & Molina, prepare herself to spend up to a day showing Fahd her latest collections of precious stones. No longer would the staff of Marbella Casino receive a signed blank cheque for the Saudi princes to gamble the night away. And no longer would the staff at the hotel Incosol receive the king of tips Fahd once gave them; 300.000 Euro – enough for the entire staff to receive an extra year’s salary. Puerto Banus will miss one of the large tourist attractions when King Fahd’s huge yacht –Shaf, is mooring in the harbour.

The Last Arab Monarch?

Now in only King Fahd had tried out some of the spa treatments at Hotel Incosol, he might have still been able to enjoy his earlier lifestyle as the undisputed Big Spender of the Costa del Sol. Is he forever doomed to be remembered as the last of the old style Arab monarchs? Or is there among his many sons a potential successor? If so, the one certainty is he is unlikely to avail himself of the facilities at hotel Incosol.

In these turbulent times for the House of Saud, its members know that any display of pampering will alienate the further from their own people – bringing closer the day that Osama bin Laden has promised will see the end of the royal House of Saudi.

Monument after King Fahd

Europa Point in Gibraltar has the largest mosque in a non-Islamic country. Like the mosque on Marbella's Golden Mile, it was paid for by King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and opened in 1997 as a focal point for Arabs travelling in southern Europe.